The field of the present disclosure relates generally to consumer energy sources, and more specifically, to network-based systems and methods for controlling and analyzing consumer energy sources.
Renewable energy has been increasingly used to power properties such as homes and offices. Users have been more and more drawn to cheaper and greener renewable energy sources as an alternative to conventional energy. For example, one form of renewable energy includes installing solar panels to a property's electric grid. Currently, users may connect renewable energy devices through their distribution board to their homes to help supply power to their home. When too much power is being produced, users may either store it or send it back through a conventional supplier's power grid. Along with the cost efficiency of renewable energy, some conventional energy suppliers allow users to sell their energy to the suppliers when users' renewable energy devices are producing too much power. Unfortunately, it is difficult for users to keep track of earnings, savings, and costs due to all the different and separate steps involved. This is further complicated when a user's renewable energy device may not produce enough energy to power their home, creating a need for the user to purchase energy from a conventional supplier. Additionally, users may also have difficulty accurately keeping track of and controlling the electrical draw from their home devices to keep the need to purchase more energy down. Consequently, due to all of these complications, most users are not saving as much money as they could be, which is one of the main reasons users switch to renewable energy to begin with.
Accordingly, there is a need to have a streamlined way to track and control the energy usage in users' property (e.g., household, office), and to calculate the savings from using renewable energy and the possible cost of purchasing conventional energy. Power calculations and control methods are described herein that make use of APIs to generate real-time savings and power metrics from using solar power and allow immediate control of power consuming devices in a user's property.